BBQ Thermometers Get Serious

You can write with a fifty cent disposable pen. Or you can write with a $350 Montblanc. The words are the same, but many people will tell you there is something different about the Montblanc. Maybe that’s how [armin] feels about meat thermometers. His version uses a Raspberry Pi and has a lengthy feature list:

  • 8 Channel data logging
  • Plotting
  • Webcam (USB or Raspicam)
  • Alarms via a local beeper, Web, WhatsApp, or e-mail
  • Temperature and fan control using a PID
  • LCD display

You can even use a Pi Zero for a light version. There’s plenty of information on Hackaday.io, although the full details are only in German for the moment. As you can see in the video below, this isn’t your dollar store meat thermometer.

Even though a disposable pen does the same job as a Montblanc, most of us would rather have a Montblanc (although Hackday would have to hand out some pretty steep raises before we start using the Meisterstück Solitaire Blue Hour Skeleton 149).

We might have done more with an ESP8266 and then done more work on the client, but we have to admit, this is one feature-packed thermometer. We’ve seen simpler ones that use Bluetooth before, along with some hacks of commercial units.


Raspberry_Pi_LogoSmall

The Raspberry Pi Zero contest is presented by Hackaday and Adafruit. Prizes include Raspberry Pi Zeros from Adafruit and gift cards to The Hackaday Store!
See All the Entries || Enter Your Project Now!

12 thoughts on “BBQ Thermometers Get Serious

    1. No kidding, was thinking about remote temp probes this last night while monitoring ribs in the smoker ;)
      I will say that this has what I was thinking about beat in features…heh.

      1. The coincidence is even more striking for me – I actually just uploaded a sensor interface board last night (after this was posted, apparently, but before seeing it) for my own overengineered bbq of doom. I hadn’t intended to draw any attention to it as it’s not done yet, but it has been a lot of fun to design and I’m aiming to build it out into a complete solar-charging micropower system I can permanently mount to my smoker. The analog board is intentionally overkill in so many ways (16 channels, precision voltage references, uA-range 0.1% bias current supply, 24-bit ADC, etc) because I want to be able to use the same board for many different projects.

        https://github.com/mokus0/smoker-control

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.